Jefferson Quotes

Jefferson Quotes:

"Who will govern the governors?"

"The people, especially when moderately instructed, are the only safe, because the only honest, depositaries of the public rights, and should therefore be introduced into the administration of them in every function to which they are sufficient; they will err sometimes and accidentally, but never designedly, and with a systematic and persevering purpose…."

- to M. Coray, 1823. ME 15:483

"I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom." - to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:39

"I know no safe depositary of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of constitutional power." - to William C. Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278

"Aristocrats... fear the people, and wish to transfer all power to the higher classes of society."

- to William Short, 1825. ME 16:96

"The people...are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:392

"No government can continue good, but under the control of the people." - to John Adams, 1819. ME 15:234

"Unless the mass retains sufficient control over those entrusted with the powers of their government, these will be perverted to their own oppression, and to the perpetuation of wealth and power in the individuals and their families selected for the trust."- to M. van der Kemp, 1812. ME 13:136

"No other depositories of power [but the people themselves] have ever yet been found, which did not end in converting to their own profit the earnings of those committed to their charge."

- to Samuel Kercheval, 1816. ME 15:71

"We fear that [violations of the Constitution] may produce insurrection. Nothing could be so fatal. Anything like force [used against the violators] would check the progress of the public opinion and rally them round the government. This is not the kind of opposition the American people will permit. But keep away all show of force and they will bear down the evil propensities of the government by the constitutional means of election and petition." - to Edmund Pendleton, 1799. ME 10:105

"Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day." - to Pierre Samuel Dupont de Nemours, 1816. ME 14:49